Systems and methods for information technology portfolio knowledge and management

ABSTRACT

Aspects of the present disclosure involve methods and systems for managing various applications, services, configuration data, business data and the like corresponding to a business enterprise. An information technology portfolio knowledge and management system may generate an application management view configured to enable users to automatically manage the various applications, services, configuration data, and business data.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present non-provisional utility application claims priority to U.S.Provisional Application No. 61/837,561 entitled “System and Methods ForInformation Technology Portfolio Knowledge And Management,” filed onJun. 20, 2013, and which is hereby incorporated by reference in itsentirety.

TECHNICAL FIELD

Aspects of the present disclosure relate to methods and systems formanaging heterogeneous technologies and/or applications of a businessenterprise.

BACKGROUND

Many businesses, universities, governmental agencies and otherenterprises today operate using a variety of heterogeneous technologies,business applications and other technological business resources toperform different electronic transactions, manage the enterprise, andcollect and manage data. For example, it is common for a single businessenterprise to use multiple and diverse applications and services toengage in various consumer, payroll, and/or business data managementtransactions. As the modern economy becomes more technologically complexand business requirements and opportunities change, many businessesrequire cross-enterprise collaborations among existing applications andservices, as well as integration with new external technologies andsystems, such as business-to-consumer and/or business-to-businessapplications. Thus, in today's enterprise environment, it is often thecase that a business enterprise will employ various enterprise portfoliomanagement and/or portfolio management tools in an attempt tointelligently manage their business applications and services. However,the diversity of tools and managing the same presents many challenges.For example, the continuous evaluation of costs and risks associatedwith a given application and/or services has become critical to abusiness enterprises' success.

Conventionally, integrating, reducing and eliminating redundancies,and/or extending existing business applications and services, orintegrating existing business technologies and applications with newerexternal systems is difficult because of inconsistent interfaces,fragmented, differently formatted, and/or redundant data sources, andinflexible architectures. Such a lack of integration may presentchallenges when attempting to interpret and identify the relationshipsbetween the business applications and/or services of an enterprise,ultimately making it difficult for a business enterprise to makeportfolio management decisions.

It is with these concepts in mind, among others, that various aspects ofthe present disclosure were conceived and developed.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The foregoing and other objects, features, and advantages of the presentdisclosure set forth herein should be apparent from the followingdescription of particular embodiments of those inventive concepts, asillustrated in the accompanying drawings. Also, in the drawings the likereference characters refer to the same parts throughout the differentviews. The drawings depict only typical embodiments of the presentdisclosure and, therefore, are not to be considered limiting in scope.

FIG. 1 is a flow chart for managing configuration items of a portfolio,according to aspects of the present disclosure.

FIG. 2 is block diagram illustrating a computing environment formanaging configuration items of a portfolio, according to aspects of thepresent disclosure.

FIGS. 3A-3G are example screen shots of various embodiments of thepresent disclosure.

FIG. 4 is an example computing environment, according to aspects of thepresent disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Aspects of the present disclosure extend to methods, systems, andcomputer program products for managing various applications, services,configuration data, and business data commonly included within anportfolio of an enterprise. More particularly, an information technologyportfolio knowledge and management system (“ITPKM”) may generate one ormore interfaces, collectively referred to as an “Application ManagementView” (“AMV”), that enables users to manage the various applications,services, web services and/or configuration data (collectively referredto herein as “configuration items”) maintained within the portfolio ofthe enterprise. The configuration items represent the different itemsincluded within the portfolio that may be configured, re-configured,provisioned, and/or otherwise modified, etc. For example, variousconfiguration items may be configured and/or re-configured to facilitatemanagement of business data corresponding to the portfolio of theenterprise. As another example, various configuration items may beconfigured and/or re-configured to improve performance, reliability,capacity, and/or the like, of the various configuration items. The AMVmay be accessed throughout the various life-cycles of the configurationitems to establish consistency, ensure that each configuration item'sfunctional and physical attributes are within its requirements, andensure that each configuration item's design and configuration data isaccurate.

Generally speaking, a portfolio represents a group of applications(e.g., which may include end-user and backend applications), services,and/or large datasets that are currently being used and maintained by anenterprise, which may be a business, university, governmentalorganization or other entity. For example, a business enterprise withinthe telecommunications industry (e.g., a telecommunications serviceprovider) may include hundreds of applications, services and/or datasetsfor providing various telecommunication services, such as collaborationand cloud computing services, content delivery and distributionservices, voice over internet protocol services, and/or the like.Additionally, such an enterprise may maintain other backend typeapplications that, when executed, manage the data generated by end-userapplications, such as applications that maintain configuration datacorresponding to end-user applications and web services, and/or anyother type of application and/or service required by the enterprise toengage in its business transactions. It is not uncommon for anenterprise to have hundreds or even thousands of applications deployedwithin its network.

Although an enterprise may have hundreds of applications, services,and/or datasets, most enterprises only actively use a fraction of suchitems to engage in its day-to-day computing transactions. Such asituation may present many challenges and often results in costlymaintenance and labor fees, data inefficiencies and potential securityrisks. Aspects of the present disclosure provide systems and methodsthat enable users to automatically manage the various items included inthe portfolio of an enterprise in an efficient and effective manner byproviding an AMV that visualizes or otherwise displays the currentstatus of the various applications, services and/or datasets of theenterprise portfolio and how such items interrelate. Users, such as webservice developers and/or business end-users, may interact with the AMVthereby simplifying a user's ability to develop, deploy, and manageitems of the enterprise portfolio.

An illustrative process and system for managing an portfolio of abusiness enterprise is depicted in FIGS. 1-2. In particular, FIG. 1illustrates an example process 100 for generating an AMV capable ofmanaging various configuration items (e.g., applications and services)of the enterprise. FIG. 2 illustrates a computing environment 200including an ITPKM 202 configured to generate the AMV 212. Thus, FIG. 2illustrates a computing environment 200 including the ITPKM 202operating in conjunction with various other hardware and/or softwarecomponents (operating on hardware) that may be used to perform orotherwise execute the process 100.

Referring now to FIG. 1, process 100 begins with serving an AMV fordisplay to a user that visualizes one or more configuration itemsincluded in an portfolio of an enterprise (operation 102). Referring toFIG. 2, the AMV 212 is served from the ITPKM 202 to a user device 206.Stated differently, the ITPKM 202 may provide a mechanism, process,and/or application, such as a management application 208, which, whenexecuted, generates the AMV 212, which may be served or deployed to abrowser located at the user device 206. The user device 206 may be apersonal computer, work station, server, mobile device, mobile phone,processor, or other type of client device. The ITPKM 202 may communicatewith the user device 206 over a network 218, which includes any numberof possible networks including a local area network, wide area network,wireless network, the Internet, and combinations of the same.

The served AMV 212 may include one or more interfaces/input forms (e.g.a user-interface or graphical user-interfaces (GUIs)) for enabling usersto interact and/or visualize various configuration items and/orconfigurable aspects of the configuration items included within aportfolio of the enterprise. For example, the AMV 212 may include one ormore interactive elements fields, and/or components that may be used todefine or visualize various relationships between the configurationitems (i.e., the applications, services, data, etc.) of the enterprise.In another embodiment, the AMV 212 may include one or more tools and/ortabs for managing a specific configuration item, such as an applicationor service, currently deployed within the network of the enterprise.Each tab represents a navigational widget that allows specific contentcorresponding to configuration items to be contained, viewed, and/orpresented within the AMV 212. In one particular embodiment, the tabs maycorrespond to one or more aspects of the life-cycle of an application orservice currently deployed by the business enterprise. An applicationlife-cycle typically refers to the governance, development andmaintenance of an application or service. For example, a contentmanagement application may require specific developmental andarchitectural, coding, testing, and release management requirements. Themanagement of such phases of an application and its development isreferred to as the application life-cycle. Thus, the AMV 212 may includea single tab for the architectural, coding, testing, and releasemanagement phases of the life-cycle corresponding to each phase. In yetanother embodiment, the AMV 212 may include various other tabs, all ofwhich present, display, or otherwise provide application datacorresponding to one or more applications included in a portfolio of theenterprise.

The served AMV 212 may also present or otherwise display applicationdata corresponding to some, or all, of the configuration items currentlydeployed and/or maintained within the portfolio of the enterprise. Inparticular, the various interfaces of the AMV 212 may include componentsconfigured to receive and/or define application data corresponding tothe configuration items of the portfolio. In one embodiment, theapplication data may include one or more definitions and/or attributescorresponding to a particular configuration item included within theportfolio of the enterprise. A definition and/or attribute represents acharacteristic of a configuration item that may be defined and viewed bya user accessing an interface of, or within, the AMV 212. For example, auser interested in a web service included within the portfolio of theenterprise may interact with the user device 206 to access the AMVproviding application data corresponding to or otherwise definingdefinitions and/or attributes corresponding to the web service. Thefollowing is an example listing of various definitions and/or attributesthat may be configured at the AMV 212 and stored as application datawithin CMDB 220. In one embodiment, a “name” definition may be included,which represents the fully qualified name of the application. A“classification” definition may be included that classifies the type ofapplication. For example, an application may be an enterpriseapplication, an infrastructure application, or a “component”application. A “software type” definition may classify the particulartype of application or service. A “business criticality” definition mayidentify the applications that have the highest business priority. An“architecture domains” definition may identify the primary domain inwhich the application may be included. A “status” definition articulatesthe current state of a configuration item, such as whether theconfiguration item is in the planning, development, active, retired,archived, or decommissioned phase. A “strategy” definition identifiesthe strategic plan for the configuration item, such as whether theconfiguration item is undetermined, invested, maintained, decommission,or strategically archived. It is contemplated that any type ofdefinition that articulates a standard characteristic of an applicationor service included within a portfolio may be included in theapplication data. Each of these attributes and/or definitions may bevisualized on one or more of the interfaces of the AMV 212 in real time,or near real time. Users may interact with the interfaces to edit,modify, update, and/or add new attributes, definitions, and/or the like.

The application data may also include support contact information foridentifying the appropriate person to contact in the event of atechnical problem and information indicating which configurable itemsare currently having problems. Referring again to FIGS. 1 and 2, suchapplication data may be provided to other external computing systemsassociated with the business enterprise in the form of a notification,such as an outage notification indicating that functionality associatedwith one or more of the configuration items, or the configuration itemitself, are no longer functioning properly and which other configurationitems or other functionality may be impacted by the outage. In oneembodiment, application data may be provided to an enterprise servicesplatform 205 that is capable of performing various business functionsbased on the received application data. For example, if the applicationdata included information identifying a technical issue within one ofthe applications, web services and/or the like included within theportfolio of the enterprise, a notification may be sent to theenterprise system identifying the technical issue. In response, theenterprise services platform 205 may automatically trigger one or morebusiness functions, which when executed, may remedy the technicalproblem.

The application data may further include definition and classificationof the source of the application data being obtained. For example, theapplication data may be classified according to the corporate datamodel. The corporate data model represents a logical framework depictingthe business view of critical data and keys, owned by an enterprise,which drives alignment through implementation. Within a given business,for example, multiple applications may share and/or replicate data.Under such contexts, it may be beneficial to only have one database orapplication that maintains the “official” data and/or dataset so as notto have different, un-reconcilable data sources. A source of recordidentifies which application is the official source for particular typesof information (such as billing account information, billing cycleinformation, tax information, quote information, etc.). Thus, a user mayinteract with the various interfaces of the AMV 212, currentlyvisualizing one or more applications, services and/or datasets of theenterprise portfolio and provide application data defining an officialsource of record for particular types of data included within theenterprise portfolio application data to the AMV 212 that defines asource of record identifying which configuration item is considered tobe the official source for particular types of data.

The ITPKM 202 may include or otherwise be in communication with aconfiguration management database (“CMDB”) 220 and may include memoryand one or more processors or processing systems to receive, process,query and transmit communications and store and retrieve applicationdata related to the various applications and services, or othercomponents included within an portfolio of a business enterprise.Although the CMDB 220 of FIG. 2 is depicted as being located within theITPKM 202, it is contemplated that the CMDB 220 may be part of aseparate information technology infrastructure (e.g. a database) fromthe ITPKM 202, which may communicate with the ITPKM 202 via thecommunications network 218. In such a context, the managementapplication 208 may interact with the CMDB 220 using one or more webservices and/or related functionality and may be implemented accordingto a variety of different web service paradigms in their invocation andusage, such as for example, according to a representational statetransfer (“REST”) software paradigm or architecture.

Referring again to FIG. 1, various dependencies, relationships,categorizations, and/or other correlations may be defined and/or viewedbetween the various configuration items currently included within theportfolio of the enterprise. For example, the AMV may display theattributes, including a name, classification, and component attributefor each application, service, and/or data sets included within theportfolio. As another example, the AMV may display one or moredependencies for each of the applications, services, and/or data setsincluded within the portfolio. Stated differently, each application,service, and/or data set may relate to, or otherwise depend on otherapplications, services, or data sets to function properly. Thus, the AMVmay visualize which items depend on other items. Knowing whichconfiguration items are coupled, dependent, or otherwise related,provides knowledge on which applications may be impacted in the eventone configuration item is modified, updated, fails, etc. Stateddifferently, in order to properly manage such dependencies and/orrelationships, an enterprise must maintain the integrity of theapplication data corresponding to the configuration items currentlyactive within the portfolio. For example, a telecommunication servicemay deploy new versions of applications and/or services currentlydeployed within its network, or terminate existing applications and/orservices, resulting in a new relationship, dependency, correlation, orthe like, between the new application versions and other configurationitems included within the portfolio of the enterprise. In response, theapplication data maintained within the CMDB 220 of the ITPKM 202 mayneed to be updated or otherwise modified, in a manner that defines thechanges occurring between the various application and/or services (i.e.,configuration items).

Thus, a relationship or dependency between one or more configurationitems within the portfolio of the business enterprise and/or itscorresponding application data included in the portfolio of theenterprise may be defined or visualized (operation 104). Variousmechanisms may be used to establish the relationships, such asapplication programming interfaces, discovery mechanisms, web services,and/or the like. For example, referring to the telecommunication serviceexample above, in response to the deployment of a new version of theservice, the ITPKM 202 may automatically discover an applicationprogramming interface (“API”) coupled to the previous version of thetelecommunication service, and automatically update the API tocommunicate with the new version of the telecommunication service toensure continuous connectivity.

In another embodiment, any of the configuration items may be organizedor otherwise arranged in defined sets, such as according to a functionaldomain that associates the items according to a common functionality. Inthe context of a business enterprise, a functional domain may correspondto a particular type of business transaction or process. In anotherembodiment, the configuration item may be configured according to aregion in which the configured item may be used. For example, theconfigurable item may be associated with various regions or departmentsof a business such as: billing and rating, collaboration, customermanagement, delivery channels, enterprise management, finance, humanresources, IT Infrastructure, network engineering, and the like. In yetanother embodiment, the configuration item may be organized according tothe host environment in which a configurable item resides.

Referring again to FIG. 1, any application data corresponding to theconfiguration items may automatically be updated in response to a changein dependency, relationship, reorganization, or other arrangement ofconfiguration items (operation 106). More particularly, the source ofrecord defining the relationship between the configuration items may beupdated within the CMDB 220. Referring to the telecommunication servicesexample above, in response to the deployment of the new version, thesource of record corresponding to the telecommunication service may beautomatically updated by the ITPKM 202 to indicate that the officialdata source for the telecommunication service is now the new updatedversion.

An illustrative example for managing one or more configuration items,such as for example one or more applications, included in a portfolio ofan enterprise will now be provided. In particular, FIGS. 3A-3Gillustrate a sequence of screen shots related to an example AMV beinggenerated by the ITPKM system 202 and displayed at the client device206. FIG. 3A represents an AMV displaying a configuration item in theform of an API Application, according to one embodiment. Thus, the APIApplication represents one example of a configuration item includedwithin the portfolio of an enterprise.

FIGS. 3B-3G illustrate various tabs 302, 304, 306, and 308 all of whichprovide and/or otherwise display application data corresponding to theAPI Application. For example, as illustrated in FIG. 3B, tab 302presents various application data including definitions and attributesfor defining the developmental aspects of the API application. In theillustrated embodiment, attributes and/or definitions 303 such as, aname, status, classification, and the like, may be visualized for theAPI application. Tab 304 of FIG. 3C illustrates various application datafor defining production aspects of the API application. Tab 306 of FIG.3D illustrates various application data for defining the applicationlife-cycle of the API application. As illustrated in FIG. 3D, thelife-cycle tab may display a “target state” application that identifieswhich system the application will be migrated to once it has beenarchived or decommissioned (at 305). Additionally, a “target date” and“actual date” definition may be displayed that represents either theforecasted date or the actual date the configuration item will beretired, archived, or decommissioned, at 307, 309, and 311 respectively.Tab 308 of FIG. 3E displays various application data for definingbusiness aspects of the API application. Tab 310 of FIG. 3F illustratesvarious application data for defining web services aspects of the APIapplication.

Tab 312 of FIG. 3G illustrates various application data for definingenterprise architecture aspects of the API application. In particular,Tab 312 provides or otherwise illustrates the relationship between theAPI Application and other configurable items included within theportfolio of the enterprise at 314. In the illustrated embodiment, theAPI Application is illustrated as being coupled to the EnterpriseService Platform, the Ticketing Rest Service-Internal, and the UnifiedAuditing Service—Internal. In one embodiment, as relationships betweenthe configuration items are changed or modified the ITPKM 202automatically updates the displayed AMV to reflect the changes. Thus, ifthe API application were decoupled from the Ticketing RestService—Internal application, Tab 312 would automatically be updated at314 to illustrate that the two applications (or configurable items) areno longer coupled or otherwise associated. Additionally, the data withinthe ITPKM 202 is updated to reflect the changes.

FIG. 4 illustrates an example of a computing node 400 which may comprisean implementation of the server 202. The computing node 400 representsone example of a suitable computing device and is not intended tosuggest any limitation as to the scope of use or functionality ofembodiments of the invention described herein. Regardless, the computingnode 400 is capable of being implemented and/or performing any of thefunctionality described above.

As illustrated, the computer node 400 includes a computer system/server402, which is operational with numerous other general purpose or specialpurpose computing system environments or configurations. Examples ofwell-known computing systems, environments, and/or configurations thatmay be suitable for use with computer system/server 402 may includepersonal computer systems, server computer systems, thin clients, thickclients, handheld or laptop devices, multiprocessor systems,microprocessor-based systems, set top boxes, programmable consumerelectronics, network PCs, minicomputer systems, mainframe computersystems, and distributed cloud computing environments that include anyof the above systems or devices, and the like.

Computer system/server 402 may be described in the general context ofcomputer system executable instructions, such as program modules, beingexecuted by a computer system. Generally, program modules may includeroutines, programs, objects, components, logic, data structures, and soon that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract datatypes. Computer system/server 402 may be practiced in distributed cloudcomputing environments where tasks are performed by remote processingdevices that are linked through a communications network. In adistributed cloud computing environment, program modules may be locatedin both local and remote computer system storage media including memorystorage devices.

As shown in FIG. 4, computer system/server 402 in computing node 400 isshown in the form of a general-purpose computing device. The componentsof computer system/server 402 may include one or more processors orprocessing units 404, a system memory 406, and a bus 408 that couplesvarious system components including system memory 406 to processor 404.

Bus 408 represents one or more of any of several types of busstructures, including a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheralbus, an accelerated graphics port, and a processor or local bus usingany of a variety of bus architectures. Such architectures may includeIndustry Standard Architecture (ISA) bus, Micro Channel Architecture(MCA) bus, Enhanced ISA (EISA) bus, Video Electronics StandardsAssociation (VESA) local bus, and Peripheral Component Interconnects(PCI) bus.

Computer system/server 402 typically includes a variety of computersystem readable media. Such media may be any available media that isaccessible by computer system/server 402, and it includes both volatileand non-volatile media, removable and non-removable media.

System memory 406 may include computer system readable media in the formof volatile memory, such as random access memory (RAM) 410 and/or cachememory 412. Computer system/server 402 may further include otherremovable/non-removable, volatile/non-volatile computer system storagemedia. By way of example only, storage system 413 can be provided forreading from and writing to a non-removable, non-volatile magnetic media(not shown and typically called a “hard drive”). Although not shown, amagnetic disk drive for reading from and writing to a removable,non-volatile magnetic disk (e.g., a “floppy disk”), and an optical diskdrive for reading from or writing to a removable, non-volatile opticaldisk such as a CD-ROM, DVD-ROM or other optical media can be provided.In such instances, each can be connected to bus 408 by one or more datamedia interfaces. As will be further depicted and described below,memory 406 may include at least one program product having a set (e.g.,at least one) of program modules that are configured to carry out thefunctions of embodiments of the invention.

Program/utility 414, having a set (at least one) of program modules 416,may be stored in memory 406, as well as an operating system, one or moreapplication programs, other program modules, and program data. Each ofthe operating system, one or more application programs, other programmodules, and program data or some combination thereof, may include animplementation of a networking environment. Program modules 416generally carry out the functions and/or methodologies of embodiments ofthe invention as described herein.

Computer system/server 402 may also communicate with one or moreexternal devices 418 such as a keyboard, a pointing device, a display420, etc.; one or more devices that enable a user to interact withcomputer system/server 402; and/or any devices (e.g., network card,modem, etc.) that enable computer system/server 402 to communicate withone or more other computing devices. Such communication can occur viaInput/Output (I/O) interfaces 422. Still yet, computer system/server 402can communicate with one or more networks such as a local area network(LAN), a general wide area network (WAN), and/or a public network (e.g.,the Internet) via network adapter 424. As depicted, network adapter 424communicates with the other components of computer system/server 402 viabus 408. It should be understood that although not shown, other hardwareand/or software components could be used in conjunction with computersystem/server 402. Examples, include, but are not limited to: microcode,device drivers, redundant processing units, external disk drive arrays,RAID systems, tape drives, and data archival storage systems, etc.

The description above includes example systems, methods, techniques,instruction sequences, and/or computer program products that embodytechniques of the present disclosure. However, it is understood that thedescribed disclosure may be practiced without these specific details. Inthe present disclosure, the methods disclosed may be implemented as setsof instructions or software readable by a device. Further, it isunderstood that the specific order or hierarchy of steps in the methodsdisclosed are instances of example approaches. Based upon designpreferences, it is understood that the specific order or hierarchy ofsteps in the method can be rearranged while remaining within thedisclosed subject matter. The accompanying method claims presentelements of the various steps in a sample order, and are not necessarilymeant to be limited to the specific order or hierarchy presented.

The described disclosure may be provided as a computer program product,or software, that may include a machine-readable medium having storedthereon instructions, which may be used to program a computer system (orother electronic devices) to perform a process according to the presentdisclosure. A machine-readable medium includes any mechanism for storinginformation in a form (e.g., software, processing application) readableby a machine (e.g., a computer). The machine-readable medium mayinclude, but is not limited to, magnetic storage medium (e.g., floppydiskette), optical storage medium (e.g., CD-ROM); magneto-opticalstorage medium, read only memory (ROM); random access memory (RAM);erasable programmable memory (e.g., EPROM and EEPROM); flash memory; orother types of medium suitable for storing electronic instructions.

It is believed that the present disclosure and many of its attendantadvantages should be understood by the foregoing description, and itshould be apparent that various changes may be made in the form,construction and arrangement of the components without departing fromthe disclosed subject matter or without sacrificing all of its materialadvantages. The form described is merely explanatory, and it is theintention of the following claims to encompass and include such changes.

While the present disclosure has been described with reference tovarious embodiments, it should be understood that these embodiments areillustrative and that the scope of the disclosure is not limited tothem. Many variations, modifications, additions, and improvements arepossible. More generally, embodiments in accordance with the presentdisclosure have been described in the context of particularimplementations. Functionality may be separated or combined in blocksdifferently in various embodiments of the disclosure or described withdifferent terminology. These and other variations, modifications,additions, and improvements may fall within the scope of the disclosureas defined in the claims that follow.

What is claimed is:
 1. An application management system comprising: atleast one computing device to: generate one or more interfaces formanaging a plurality of configurable interrelating items of aninformation technology portfolio, each of the configurable interrelatingitems of the information technology portfolio including at least one ofan application, a web service, or a dataset, the one or more interfacesdisplaying application data corresponding to the plurality ofconfigurable interrelating items of the information technologyportfolio, wherein at least first application data is replicated betweenat least a first configurable item and a second configurable item in theplurality of configurable interrelating items of the informationtechnology portfolio; designate the first configurable item as a sourceof record for the first application data, wherein the source of recordis an official source for the first application data among multipleconfigurable items storing the first application data; provide the oneor more interfaces for display, wherein the one or more interfacesinclude a first interface to: based on the application data: display, atthe first interface, at least the first application data that isreplicated between the first configurable item and the secondconfigurable item; display, at the first interface, a plurality ofattributes corresponding to the first configurable item; and display ata second interface, the first application data and a plurality ofattributes corresponding to the second configurable item; and determinethat the first application data has been revised; automatically updatethe first display to show the revised first application data;automatically update the source of record with the revised firstapplication data; and automatically update the second display to showthe revised first application data based on the updated source ofrecord.
 2. The system of claim 1, wherein the first application dataincludes at least one dependency that defines a common functional domainfor the first configurable item and the second configurable item.
 3. Thesystem of claim 1, wherein the one or more interfaces include aplurality of navigational tabs, each tab of the plurality of tabscorresponding to a manageable aspect of each configurable item of theplurality of configurable interrelating items.
 4. The system of claim 1,wherein generating one or more interfaces comprises accessing aconfiguration management database containing the first application data.5. A method for managing applications comprising: generating, using oneor more computing devices, one or more interfaces for managing aplurality of configurable interrelating items of an informationtechnology portfolio, each of the plurality of configurableinterrelating items of the information technology portfolio including atleast one of an application, a web service, or a dataset, the one ormore interfaces displaying application data corresponding to theplurality of configurable interrelating items of the informationtechnology portfolio, wherein at least first application data isreplicated between at least a first configurable item and a secondconfigurable item in the plurality of configurable interrelating itemsof the information technology portfolio; designating the firstconfigurable item as a source of record for the first application data,wherein the source of record is an official source for the firstapplication data among multiple configurable items storing the firstapplication data; causing the display, on at least one of the one ormore computing devices, of the one or more interfaces, wherein the oneor more interfaces include a first interface to: based on theapplication data: display, at the first interface, at least the firstapplication data that is replicated between the first configurable itemand the second configurable item; display, at the first interface, aplurality of attributes corresponding to the first configurable item;and display at a second interface, the first application data and aplurality of attributes corresponding to the second configurable item;and determining that the first application data has been revised;automatically updating the first display to show the revised firstapplication data; automatically updating the source of record with therevised first application data; and automatically updating the seconddisplay to show the revised first application data based on the updatedsource of record.
 6. The method of claim 5, wherein the firstapplication data includes at least one dependency that defines a commonfunctional domain for the first configurable item and the secondconfigurable item.
 7. The method of claim 5, wherein the one or moreinterfaces include a plurality of navigational tabs, each tab of theplurality of tabs corresponding to a manageable aspect of eachconfigurable item of the plurality of configurable interrelating items.8. The method of claim 5, wherein generating one or more interfacescomprises accessing a configuration management database containing theapplication data corresponding to at least the first configurable item.9. A non-transitory computer readable medium encoded with instructionsfor managing applications, the instructions, when executed by at leastone processor, causing the at least one processor to: generate one ormore interfaces for managing a plurality of configurable interrelatingitems of an information technology portfolio, each of the plurality ofconfigurable interrelating items of the information technology portfolioincluding at least one of an application, a web service, or a dataset,the one or more interfaces corresponding to the plurality ofconfigurable interrelating items, wherein at least first applicationdata is replicated between at least a first configurable item and asecond configurable item in the plurality of configurable interrelatingitems of the information technology portfolio; designate the firstconfigurable item as a source of record for the first application data,wherein the source of record is an official source for the firstapplication data among multiple configurable items storing the firstapplication data; provide the one or more interfaces for display,wherein the one or more interfaces include a first interface to: receiveapplication data corresponding to the first interface; and based on theapplication data: display, at the first interface, at least the firstapplication data that is replicated between the first configurable itemand the second configurable item; display, at the first interface, aplurality of attributes corresponding to the first configurable item;and display at a second interface, the first application data and aplurality of attributes corresponding to the second configurable item;and determine that the first application data has been revised;automatically update the first display to show the revised firstapplication data; automatically update the source of record with therevised first application data; and automatically update the seconddisplay to show the revised first application data based on the updatedsource of record.
 10. The non-transitory computer readable medium ofclaim 9, wherein the first application data includes at least onedependency that defines a common functional domain for the firstconfigurable item and the second configurable item.
 11. Thenon-transitory computer readable medium of claim 9, wherein the one ormore interfaces include a plurality of navigational tabs, each tab ofthe plurality of tabs corresponding to a manageable aspect of eachconfigurable item of the plurality of configurable interrelating items.12. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 9, whereingenerating one or more interfaces comprises accessing a configurationmanagement database containing the application data corresponding to atleast the first configurable item.